Numerous applications exist in which it can be desired to form materials comprising two or more elements provided in a substantially homogenous distribution of the elements. For instance, it can be desired to form physical vapor deposition (PVD) targets comprising two or more metallic elements uniformly distributed throughout the targets. Frequently, it is difficult to combine two or more elements into a homogenous mixture when their melting points and/or densities are far apart. For example, there could be an interest to develop an alloyed titanium-tantalum target. However, making an alloyed titanium-tantalum ingot is impractical with conventional techniques. A large difference between the melting points of titanium and tantalum (1670° C. for titanium and 2996° C. for tantalum) makes it impractical to melt titanium together with tantalum in an e-beam furnace. Titanium would be simply vaporized at the melting point of tantalum. In addition, the large difference in densities (4.5 g/cm3 for titanium and 16 g/cm3 for tantalum) would be troublesome when powder processing an alloy comprising both titanium and tantalum. Segregation could too easily take place. Additionally, because of a generally higher gas content, powder processed targets are less preferred than melted and wrought targets.
It would be desirable to develop new methods for forming mixed metal alloy ingots, and it would be particularly desirable to develop methods which could be utilized to form titanium and tantalum alloy ingots. More generally, it would be desirable to develop new methods for forming products comprising mixtures of two or more elements. It is known that if an alloyed feedstock is melted, the melting point of the feedstock is between the melting points of components. Specifically, if an alloyed titanium and tantalum piece were melted, it would melt at a temperature in between the melting points of titanium and tantalum. The higher the portion of titanium in the piece, the lower would be the melting temperature. The lowering of the melting temperature could make the melting process much easier than for a material comprising pure tantalum. Therefore, it could be desirable to develop new methods for preparing tantalum materials diluted with titanium to form alloyed tantalum feedstocks for melting processes.